AMBIGUITIES IN VERBAL LINGUISTIC JOKES AND DEVALUATION OF GRICE'S MAXIMS OF CONVERSATION AS INGREDIENTS IN VICE GANDA'S TOP-GROSSING FILMS

Lexical and structural levels of language abound ambiguities that are good source of humor. Consequently, violations of the maxims of conversation are leeway to induce humor in any type of discourse.  Adding these two precepts and considering pragmatics as its foundation became the bases in analysing the top-grossing films of Vice Ganda. It sought to identify the verbal linguistic jokes and ambiguities present in the top-grossing films of Vice Ganda; determine on how these ambiguities create devaluation of Grice’s maxims of conversation; and determine on how the ambiguities in verbal linguistic jokes and devaluation of Grice’s maxims of conversation were used as ingredients in Vice Ganda’s top-grossing films. Discourse analysis was used in the study and the analytical framework to induce humor by Taghiyev (2018) was used in analysing the corpora. A priori coding was used to identify the recurring ambiguities and devaluation of maxims in the films. Findings show that lexical-semantic and structural-syntactic ambiguities were present in the films. It was intentionally used in order to create humorous effect in the dialogues of the films. Moreover, the devaluation of the maxims of conversation quietly and unostentatiously, opting out, coping with a clash between maxims, and flouting was deemed an effective ingredient to make the films become comical and appealing to the audience.